The “world’s first” surgery saved an infant suffering from heart failure | News

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A pioneering surgeon saved a baby’s life by injecting stem cells into his heart to keep it pumping.

Now two-year-old Finlay, of Corsham, Wiltshire, was the first child in the world with a congenital heart defect to have stem cells injected into muscles to help damaged blood vessels grow back.

This was a last-ditch attempt by Massimo Caputo, Professor of Congenital Heart Surgery and Consultant Cardiac Surgeon at the University of Bristol, after several other surgeries had failed.

Professor Massimo Caputo performed the pioneering surgery on young Finlay

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Caputo is now using the same donor stem cells to develop “stem cell patches” to repair abnormalities in valves in blood vessels and repair holes between the heart’s two main pumping chambers.

Synthetic tissue is usually used with children to repair the heart however

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